Email Marketing StatPack 2018 - thesmallbusinessexpo.com · marketing success Source: Econsultancy,...

© 2018 eMarketer Inc.

Email Marketing StatPack 2018Benchmarks and Trends

October 2018

Contributors: Caroline Cakebread, Lauren Fisher, Natalie McGranahan, Corey McNair

Jillian Ryan


This StatPack features the latest data and trends for the email marketing landscape, as well as interviews from industry experts and brands

Consumer Email Usage

Marketers and Email

Measuring Success in Email Marketing: Benchmarks and KPIs

Email Deliverability, List Maintenance and Permission in the Wake of GDPR

Are Your Emails Mobile-Ready?

Crafting Relevant Messages with Data-Driven Strategies

Managing Email and Aligning It with the Holistic Customer Experience

Email Technology on the Horizon


Consumer Email Usage


Roughly 80% of the US population will use email by 2022

Source: eMarketer, August 2018

253.4 258.2 262.5 266.3 269.7

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

US Email Users (millions)

77.3% 79.7%

0%

100%

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

US Email User Penetration (% of population)


In 2018, 281.1 billion emails will be sent and received daily


The majority of US internet users check email on their smartphone most often

Source: Fluent LLC "The Inbox Report: Consumer Perceptions of Email," Jan. 31, 2018

75%

73%

81%

Total

35+

18-24

US Internet Users Who Use a Smartphone Most Often for Checking Personal Email

(% of respondents, by age)


And they tend to subscribe to a variety of marketing email lists


After receiving a promotional email, roughly one-quarter of internet users take action


Getting users to check and open their email can be a challenge

Source: Fluent LLC, “The Inbox Report: Consumer Perceptions of Email,” January 2018

19% of US internet users check their personal email

less than once a day

28% of US internet users rarely open marketing emails

23% of US internet users never open marketing emails


Users are quick to give brands their email, but it might not be their primary account

72% of US internet users will

share their email address for a

shopping experience that is

more tailored to their personal

preferences

37% are willing to share their

email address to secure an

exclusive offer from a brand

31% create another email

account to use when they sign

up for services

Source: Avionos, “The 2018 Consumer Expectations Report, April 2018; Kelton, “Privacy, Personalization and

Promotions, May 2018; Blue Fountain Media, “Survey: How Much Do You Value Internet Privacy?” May 2018


Marketers and Email


Email is a highly used and important channel for marketers

Source: Target Marketing, "Omnichannel Marketing: The Key to Unlocking a Powerful Customer Experience," March 2018 and Nielsen, "The Nielsen CMO Report 2018," June 2018

88%of US marketers use

email to interact with

their customers

Another 11% plan to use

email in the future

77%of US marketing execs

said email is an

important digital media

channel

Only 6% said it

was not important


Email is seen as a top ROI driver by US marketers

Source: Emma, “2018 Email Marketing Industry Report”, April 2018

1%

5%

15%

21%

59%

Mobile/SMS

Video

Display ads

Social media

Email marketing

Digital Marketing Channel That Generates The Greatest ROI for Marketers, 2018 (% of respondents)


30% 44% 21% 5%

How Client-Side Marketers Rate ROI on Email Marketing, 2018 (% of respondents)

The majority of in-house marketers worldwide say email is good or excellent

Source: Econsultancy, "Email Marketing Industry Census 2018" in association with Adestra, June 2018

Excellent Good

How do you rate email marketing as a channel in terms of return on investment?

Average Poor


As effectiveness improves, marketers worldwide plan to spend more on email

Source: Return Path, "The State of Email Marketing" in partnership with Demand Metric, June 2018 and Emma, “2018 Email Marketing Industry Report”, April 2018

25%of marketers

plan to

significantly

increase

spending on

email marketing

in 2018

44%of marketers

said their email

marketing

effectiveness is

improving

37% said it is holding

steady


In-house marketers worldwide saw a favorable ratio of spend on email vs. total sales


19% 19%

14%15%

0%

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Total sales attributed to email channel

Marketing budget allocation for email channel

Marketing Budget Investment in Email Marketing vs. Sales Attributed to

Email Marketing (% of budget and % of revenue)


Marketers use email to communicate with their audience and build brand awareness

Source: Return Path, "The State of Email Marketing" in partnership with Demand Metric, June 2018

6%

3%

29%

52%

70%

73%

76%

Other

We don't have specific

objectives

Capture data on subscribers

Generate revenue

Build brand awareness

Communicate with prospects

Communicate with customers

Top Email Marketing Objectives for Marketing Professionals, 2018 (% of respondents)


A consumer’s email address is a critical source of identity for marketers

“Email addresses are

useful for customer

identification and

provide a consistent

touchpoint for marketers

to have a long-term

connection with the

recipient.”

—Stephen Driscoll, Vice

President, Marketing, AARP

“A consumer’s email

address is a primary

identifier of identity

for our clients. Couple

it with CRM activity, and it

is the main key in the

database.”

—Justin Orgel, Director,

Marketing Consulting, Cheetah

Digital


Measuring Success in Email Marketing: Benchmarks and KPIs


Email KPIs defined

Open Rate: Total opens/emails delivered

Unique Open Rate: Unique opens/emails delivered

Unique CTR: Unique clicks/emails delivered

Clickthrough Rate (CTR): Total clicks/emails delivered

Click-To-Open Rate (CTOR): Total clicks/total opens

Bounce Rate: Undelivered emails/email sent


The data shows benchmark results from various email service providers by quarter

The benchmark data presented in this section

was collected from a variety of ESPs and is

reflective of the activity of brands using each

platforms.

Our analysis will show how benchmarks vary by

industry, device, geography, company size and

other factors that impact email performance.


Nine in 10 in-house marketers worldwide say CTR is the metric used to measure email marketing success


9%

9%

21%

25%

36%

40%

67%

78%

91%

Brand metrics

Inbox placement

List growth rate

Earnings per email

Delivery rate

Bounce rate

Conversion rate

Open rate

Clickthrough rate

Metrics Used to Measure the Success of Email Marketing According to

Client-Side Marketers, 2018 (% of respondents)


Open rates for six ESPs show roughly one in five consumers open an email sent by brands

Source: Company reports from Q1 2018

33.1%

24.9%

22.8%

20.8%

18.0%

14.9%

0.0% 100.0%

Cheetah

Digital

Epsilon

IBM Watson

Marketing

Mailchimp

SendGrid

Yes Lifecycle

Marketing

Worldwide Email Open Rates Among Select ESPs, Q1 2018 (% of emails opened)


CTR across six ESPs shows less than 4% of emails got clicks in Q1 2018

3.8%

3.5%

2.6%

2.4%

2.1%

2.0%

0.0% 100.0%

Cheetah

Digital

Epsilon

IBM Watson

Marketing

Mailchimp

SendGrid

Yes Lifecycle

Marketing

Worldwide Email CTRs Among Select ESPs, Q1 2018 (% of emails clicked)

Source: Company reports from Q1 2018


Marketers must also compare performance YOY: Opens are down, but clicks/revenue are up

From Q1 2017-2018,

email campaigns sent

on Cheetah Digital’s

platform showed a

considerable dip in

open rates, while clicks,

revenue per email and

the average order value

increased year over

year. Deliverability rate

remained steady with

only a slight uptick.


Mobile accounts for roughly half of all opens and clicks on email, except in B2B


Click share for media and entertainment and multichannel retailers is heavily mobile


Triggered messages—deployed by a consumer action—see higher performance in opens, conversions and clicks

Source: Yes Lifecycle Marketing, “Q1 2018 Email Benchmarks Report,” May 2018

Triggered

messages

Non-triggered

messages

Open Rate

CTOR

Conversion Rate

CTR

14.2%

8.8%

3.9%

1.2%

25.1%

14.1%

4.2%

13.5

Q1 2018 email engagement metrics for non-triggered and triggered messages

(among campaigns analyzed by Yes Lifecycle Marketing)


Transactional emails—triggered by a customer action or order update—perform better


Benchmarks for opens and clicks vary by geography


Across all geographies, 62.4% of opened emails were interacted with for 8+ seconds

Again, Canada and

Australia are the regions

with best email marketing

performance.

The US is below average

when it comes to email

engagement share.


The size of your company is not a big factor in email performance across most measures

On Mailchimp’s

platform, open,

click, deliverability

and unsubscribe

rates were

relatively

consistent when

analyzed by

company size.


When evaluating performance metrics, testing is key, but over half don’t run tests

Source: Emma, “2018 Email Marketing Industry Report”, April 2018

53% of marketers said they almost

never A/B test their emails

21% said they do it half the time

and 11% said almost always


By not A/B testing, marketers are missing an opportunity to learn what works

“Testing different version of an email and seeing

what resonates with the audience is important.

When tracking campaign

benchmarks, like opens and clicks,

testing helps uncover which tactics,

design and language hits home with

customers.”

—Amy Kilpatrick, Director, Marketing Operations,

Mailchimp


Email Deliverability, List Maintenance and Permission in the Wake of GDPR


The challenges around deliverability cannot be ignored

“Deliverability is getting

harder. That isn’t just

being able to send

email, that means

keeping email out of the

spam filters. Different

ISPs, like Gmail,

Yahoo and AOL,

keep getting

stricter and will

block marketing

messages.”

—Kyle Henderick, Senior

Director, Client Services, Yes

Lifecycle Marketing

“It doesn’t matter how

amazing the content is, or

if the segmentation

strategy is great. If

messages don’t get

into the inbox, it is

completely

worthless but most

brands don’t start paying

attention to deliverability

until it’s an issue.”

—Forest Bronzan, Executive

Vice President, CRM, Email

and Creative Services, Elite

SEM


Marketers are using tools, like spam filters, to manage deliverability issues

Source: SmarterHQ, Cheetah Digital, Liveclicker and MailCharts, “Marketers Are on a Mission: The State of B2C Marketing,” June 2018 and Return Path, "The State of Email Marketing" with Demand Metric, June 2018

36%of marketers worldwide

employ email

deliverability optimization

as an email marketing

tactic

68.5%of US B2C marketers are

investing in email

deliverability

technologies


Overstock.com combats deliverability concerns with aggressive list hygiene practices

“Deliverability is ever-changing with inbox

placement algorithms from the likes of

Google becoming more complex. While

we stay on top of that, we also make

sure to keep our list very clean.

Some retailers feel that a biyearly

cleanse on their email list is satisfactory,

but we clean our list every single

day!”

—Brent Christensen, Director, Digital Marketing for

Email and Push, Overstock.com


List cleaning practices are becoming mainstream


55%of in-house marketers worldwide do

regular list cleansing

27%plan to implement

regular list cleansing in the next year


For AARP, list health begins with permission

“We're rigorous in permissibility.

When somebody gives us their email

address, the first thing we do is send

out an email that asks them to click

to agree that they've given us

permission to use that email. That's

an extra step that not all organizations take.

It's one that we think, though, gives the

customer a fair amount of choice and control. It also leaves us with a highly

qualified list. In other words, people

who are clearly interested in

hearing from us.”

—Stephen Driscoll, AARP


GDPR has made permission a must; email is the most common channel used to get consent

3%

4%

4%

14%

19%

21%

48%

70%

80%

Other

Don't know

We don't ask for consent

Consent management platform

Phone

Direct mail

Website notice/banner

Online form

Email

Channel Used by Marketers Worldwide to Obtain Customers' and Prospects'

Consent to Use Their Data (% of respondents)

Source: Demandbase, “Data Privacy and the GDPR Benchmark Study Report” in conjunction with Demand Metric, July 31, 2018


Marketers are split on their approach to consent for GDPR


Preference centers become more common for brands aiming for permission and relevance

“Preference centers are a

dynamic opportunity for

brands to get their

customers to self-select

preferences on how they

want to be messaged,

what information they

want and what they are

interested. It is the

next level of

granularity beyond

opt-in and opt-out.”

—Jason Conley, Senior

Director, Sales and Solution

Consulting, RRD

“Our overall principle

is to allow customer

choice and control.

We offer ‘narrow

subscriptions’ so

subscribers can opt into

very specific content and

manage their

preferences online or

within email. We also

want their

preference for email

frequency.”

—Stephen Driscoll, AARP


Are Your Emails Mobile-Ready?


Only 40% of in-house marketers say they are mobile-first; more rely on responsive design

40%

49%

53%

55%

59%

59%

66%

Thinking mobile-first in everything we do

Use pre-header test for promotion

Use templates with easy-to-tap calls to action

Responsive landing pages

Shorter subject lines

Adapted email design with a simple template

that renders well across all devices

Create responsive email template

Steps Taken to Optimize Email Marketing for Different Devices Among In-House

Marketers Worldwide, 2018 (% of respondents)



For nearly half of marketers, responsive design doesn’t mean trimming down content

49%of marketers have a responsive design

philosophy that includes the exact same content on both the desktop and

mobile versions of an email

35.3% make small changes to hide content

images or design elements in the mobile version

Source: Litmus, “The 2018 State of Email Report,” March 2018


Three ways to improve the mobile experience for email

1. Be aware of mobile's smaller screen size and tailor designs and calls to action to the mobile experience.

2. Optimize load times by limiting the amount of content that needs to render, to account for bad service or slow Wi-Fi.

3. To drive transactions and conversions, create a seamless end-to-end experience from email to web.


Crafting Relevant Messages with Data-Driven Strategies


Relevant emails result in better performance and help marketers stand out in the inbox

“If you inundate users with messages

that aren’t relevant or are too broad, you

won’t get good engagement or return on

email. While it might seem effective in the short

term, blast messages won’t get results over time. Performance metrics correlate to how

relevant and valuable the information

you're providing your audience is. At

Vimeo, we rarely ever send the same thing to our

entire list.”

—Harris Beber, CMO, Vimeo


Most in-house marketers use basic segmentation in their email marketing strategy


82% of in-house marketers worldwide

do basic segmentation

11% are planning to implement

segmentation in the next year


Segments are created based on common factors and attributes a distinct subset of the audience shares

Popular segmentation approaches:

Sending emails to specific groups of

users based on preferences or interests

Building user groups based on past

engagement and behavioral data


Three in 10 marketers segment all of their emails, but 20% don’t do any segmentation

Emma, “2018 Email Marketing Industry Report,” April 2018

29% 8% 24% 18% 21%

Percentage of Sent Emails that Are Segmented, 2018 (% of marketers)

Almost all Half 25% Almost none

What percentage of your emails are sent with a segmentation strategy?

75%


Producing relevant emails is impossible without data

“Data is the foundational

element to

understanding our email

subscribers. We want

to know their

behaviors,

preferences and

attributes so we

can send relevant

emails that will be

relevant to them.”

—Victoria Vaynberg, CMO,

Resy

“Marketers need to have

a detailed

understanding of their

audience data in order

to use email to really

move people through

the journey to purchase.

Data informs touchpoints,

personas, and which content

will resonate based on actions

or demographics.”

—Amber Cooleen, Director,

Marketing, IEEE GlobalSpec


Behavior-based triggers are a real-time way for marketers to send relevant emails

Source: Econsultancy, "Email Marketing Industry Census 2018" in association with Adestra, June 2018 and Emma, “2018 Email Marketing Industry Report”, April 2018

48%of US marketers use

automation to trigger

email campaigns

(Half of these respondents have

multiple workflows while the other half

only implement a basic welcome

email series)

60%of in-house marketers

worldwide will use more

creative behavioral

triggers to innovate their

email strategy in 2018


Personalization is happening, but still a work in progress

71% of US marketers use email content as a channel for

personalized experiences

39% of US marketers say almost none of their emails are

personalized, while 34% say about a quarter of their email is

55% of in-house marketers worldwide say integrating data is

the main challenge to implementing more personalized email

Source: Evergage and Researchscape International, “2018 Trends in Personalization,” April 2018; Econsultancy, "Email

Marketing Industry Census 2018" with Adestra and Emma, “2018 Email Marketing Industry Report,” April 2018

53% of in-house marketers worldwide are using automation to

enable one-to-one communication

35% of global in-house marketers say doing content

personalization (beyond just name) is a practice of their email

marketing efforts; another 37% plan to implement this


Overstock.com uses behavioral data across channels to send personalized emails

“When we have data on the

customer and understand how they

have been interacting with our different channels, we’re able to

personalize and deliver a

specific email message to

that individual based on their

previous engagement with

us.”—Brent Christensen, Director, Digital

Marketing for Email and Push, Overstock.com


Advanced marketers are starting to experiment with dynamic email content

Dynamic email content, in which individual

recipients receive offers or messages based on a

variety of personalized, real-time factors, such

as location, device, weather, time of day and

more, at the time of the email’s open, is becoming

more popular.

This sort of real-time content personalization is

currently in the experimentation phase as there

is no standardization across technology

vendors.


Managing Email and Aligning It with the Holistic Customer Experience


Email marketers surveyed on top challenges identified several organizational issues

Source: Return Path, "The State of Email Marketing" in partnership with Demand Metric, June 2018 and Litmus, 2018 State of Email Report," March 2018

41% named staffing and resource constraints

17% pointed to poor coordination between other departments and channels

13%said bad strategy or leadership was the primary blocker


In-house marketers worldwide dedicate the most time to email design and content


Email marketing has become part of the larger marketing team's efforts


Email as a strategy and function, needs to align with the larger marketing goals

“Email is typically

the center of the

marketing hub. It

feeds other emails and

there is a tight

coordination between

email and display,

push, SMS and more. ”

—Kara Trivunovic, Senior

Vice President, Digital

Solutions, Epsilon

“Email needs to fit into the

larger marketing ecosystem.

In order to execute good

email marketing, there

needs to be involvement

from departments

across the organization.

Everything must tie back to

larger company goals.”

—Amber Cooleen, Director,

Marketing, IEEE GlobalSpec


Reach the customer at the right touchpoint (HINT: it might not be email)

“Cross-channel coordination

means we are thinking beyond

email. It’s email, SMS, app and

browser push, display and more. To

give the customer the right channel and

touchpoint, we have united our

marketing department and strategy to

reach our audience beyond the inbox.”

—Brent Christensen, Director, Digital Marketing for

Email and Push, Overstock.com


Email Technology on the Horizon


More in-house marketers in 2018 see the benefits of using AI to improve performance


Most aren't yet using predictive tech, but a third are trying it for scheduling/frequency


Only a small percentage of email marketers are implementing interactive email

Source: Litmus, 2018 State of Email Report," March 2018

10% 4.8% 36.8% 48.9%

No, but we plan on trying soon

No, and we don’t have plans to try anytime soon

Has your company ever used interactive elements in its email marketing?

Yes, and we

will again

soon

Yes, but we don’t have

plans to use it again soon

Use of Interactive Email Elements, 2018 (% of email marketers worldwide)


Most commonly implemented interactive features in email

Source: Litmus, 2018 State of Email Report," March 2018

7.1%

9.8%

13.1%

19.0%

19.9%

23.2%

24.5%

56.3%

63.3%

Other

Search bar

Add to cart

Product tour

Reviews

Quizzes

Offer reveal

Hamburger menu

Carousel or image gallery

Interactive Features Used in Email, 2018 (% of email marketers worldwide)


Interactive email is hard to execute, but marketers see the benefits

“Kinetic, or

interactive email,

takes more time to

design, code and

QA, but it can be a way

for brands to put more

content inside of their

email in a way that is

creative and with a

good interactive

experience for the

recipient.”

— Kara Trivunovic, Senior

Vice President, Digital

Solutions, Epsilon

“Creating interactive emails

requires a lot more

additional work which is a

challenge for marketers but

with Google AMP

pages and similar

functionality from

other providers,

marketers can give

their audience

website functionality

within emails.”

—Kyle Henderick, Senior

Director, Client Services, Yes

Lifecycle Marketing


Can email evolve to a transaction channel?

“Email has historically been a traffic channel

but we see email moving away from that,

into a transaction channel. As interactive

email fully transitions, we will have

seamless buy buttons and full

browser-based web functionally

within the body of the email, making

conversions easier since everything can be

done within the email and consumers don’t

have to leave that experience to complete

the call to action.”

— Allen Nance, Global CMO, Emarsys


Additional Resources

Interviews

Harris Beber, CMO, Vimeo

Forest Bronzan, Executive Vice President of CRM, Email and Creatives Services, Elite SEM

Brent Christensen, Director, Digital Marketing for Email and Push, Overstock.com

Jason Conley, Senior Director, Sales and Solution Consulting, RRD

Amber Cooleen, Director of Marketing, IEEE GlobalSpec

Stephen Driscoll, Vice President of Marketing, AARP

Tilman Eberle, Vice President, Marketing, Doodle AG

Kyle Henderick, Senior Director, Client Services, Yes Lifecycle Marketing

Jonathan Kateman, General Manager, Constant Contact

Amy Kilpatrick, Director of Marketing Operations, Mailchimp

Matt McGowan, President, Adestra

April Mullen, Director, Consumer-First Marketing Adoption, Selligent

Allen Nance, Global CMO, Emarsys

Justin Orgel, Director, Marketing Consulting, Cheetah Digital

Tom Sather, Senior Director, Research, Return Path

Linda Uslaner, Senior Director, Product Management, IEEE GlobalSpec

Victoria Vaynberg, CMO, Resy



General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): What Companies Need to Know Now

Customer Experience 2018: Personalization Still Elusive as Marketers Seek Answer to Single View of Customer

Global Digital Users 2018: Over 80% of Internet Users to Log Online via Mobile Phone

Understanding Customer Engagement: How to Map and Make Sense of the Metrics that Matter

Related Reports

Related Interviews

Marketers' Roundtable: Brands Need to Send Fewer Emails, So Why Aren't They?

Marketers’ Roundtable: How Four Brands Use Data to Increase Email Open Rates and Engagement

How AARP Uses Email to Give Consumers a Better Brand Experience

http://totalaccess.emarketer.com/reports/viewer.aspx?r=2002218

https://content-na1.emarketer.com/customer-experience-2018

https://content-na1.emarketer.com/global-digital-users-2018

https://content-na1.emarketer.com/understanding-customer-engagement

https://content-na1.emarketer.com/marketers-roundtable-brands-need-to-send-fewer-emails-so-why-arent-they

https://content-na1.emarketer.com/email-is-changing-here-is-how-4-marketers-are-keeping-up

https://content-na1.emarketer.com/aarp-explains-how-to-capture-consumers-emails-and-attention



Adestra

Avionos

Blue Fountain Media

Cheetah Digital

Demand Metric

Demandbase

Econsultancy

Emma

Epsilon

Evergage

Fluent LLC

IBM Watson Marketing

Kelton

Litmus

Liveclicker

MailCharts

Mailchimp

Nielsen

Radicati

Researchscape International

Return Path

SendGrid

SmarterHQ

Target Marketing

Yes Lifecycle Marketing

Sources

https://www.adestra.com/

https://www.avionos.com/

https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/

https://www.cheetahdigital.com/

https://www.demandmetric.com/

https://www.demandbase.com/

https://econsultancy.com/

https://myemma.com/

https://www.epsilon.com/

https://www.evergage.com/

https://www.fluentco.com/

https://www.ibm.com/customer-engagement/digital-marketing

https://www.keltonglobal.com/

https://litmus.com/

https://www.liveclicker.com/

https://www.mailcharts.com/

https://mailchimp.com/

http://www.nielsen.com/us/en.html

http://www.radicati.com/

http://www.researchscape.com/

https://returnpath.com/

https://sendgrid.com/

https://smarterhq.com/

https://www.targetmarketingmag.com/

http://www.yeslifecyclemarketing.com/

Email Marketing StatPack 2018 - thesmallbusinessexpo.com · marketing success Source: Econsultancy,...

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Transcript of Email Marketing StatPack 2018 - thesmallbusinessexpo.com · marketing success Source: Econsultancy,...